


By Fire

by PhantomEngineer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-22 00:04:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14296362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: Severus grieves after Lily's death.





	By Fire

Severus sat against the gravestone, his head lolling against it. If anyone had come by, they might have thought he was dead, but he wasn’t. He just wished he was. No one would pass by anyway, as few people roamed graveyards late at night. He was the only one who kept his visits to after dark, preferring the privacy. He always erected a gentle ward around the grave too, just to discourage anyone from finding him there, a paranoid action born out of the constant fear of wartime, only made worse by the double life he had led.

He felt compelled to spend the night with her whenever possible, grateful for the summer weather at least making it easier than it was in winter. He still came then, though it was also harder during term times. Christmas, her birthday and Halloween he made sure to spend sitting or lying above her, curled up on the grass knowing that she lay six feet underneath him. He brought blankets, feeble attempts to keep them both warm, though he had magic for himself and she was dead. It didn’t matter. He still felt the need to do so, a form of penance. Grief and guilt.

He hated to think of her, cold and alone, rotting away inside a box. He would never have let them bury her, only he had had no say in the matter. It had been so sudden, and with that moment everything had changed. Voldemort’s fall had thrown the chaotic war into a chaotic peace, and with that he had faced trial. He had been unable to attend her funeral, but he wouldn’t have done so even had he been able to. He wasn’t sure if she would have wanted him there, after the way their friendship had ended. But he might have been able to fight them, to stop them from condemning Lily to an eternity that she had so feared.

When each of her grandparents had died he had consoled her, and with each of them she had repeated her certainty that she could imagine nothing worse than being buried. She had always been afraid of being buried alive, and being buried after death was confirmed had seemed to her to be no better. She had begged him to ensure that no matter what she was cremated, her body burnt away to a crisp. She had always loved fire. Severus had thought it suited her far more, warm and passionate as she had been, not a crass comparison to her hair.

Once, he had asked Dumbledore, an incoherent outpouring of grief after his release and return to Hogwarts, what had been done with her body. Dumbledore had given him a look of total disgust, reluctantly showing him the grave and stating nothing more than that she had been buried. That the grave was to be undisturbed. When Severus had realised what Dumbledore was implying, long after the conversation, he had been horrified. Once more he had tried to mention to him that Lily had been so desperately opposed to being buried, that it was something she was so very afraid of, that she had had her heart set on cremation, such a strange conversation for teenagers to have had but they had been strange teenagers. Dumbledore hadn’t understood, Severus could see that from his reaction to the first few words that tumbled from his mouth, letting the words dry up in his mouth and going to Lily’s grave.

He had knelt there and cried, apologising again and again for both his part in her death, for the word he had called her long ago, and for letting her be trapped in a box surrounded by dirt. He could think of nothing else to do but to keep her company as best he could. Maybe she had changed her mind, he could consider that, but she had been so very insistent. There was nothing else that he had heard that would suggest such a fundamental change of heart, even if she had changed enough to marry James Potter.

He laid a blanket over the grave, where he knew her coffin would be, deep below him. It wasn’t much, far too far from her to keep her warm. He lit candles too, a pale imitation of the fire he wished he could light. But he knew that if he did anything more he would be caught, and then he doubted he would remain free. He had to remain free, remain at Hogwarts waiting for her son, to protect him from whenever Voldemort returned to threaten the boy with Lily’s eyes. 

Sometimes, as he lay down on grass that grew on the grave, he would remember when he had been a child with Lily, the two of them lying on grass surrounded by life, dreaming of magic. Now he lay on grass surrounded by death, haunted by ghosts of his own creation. He hated to think of her, no longer alive and full of the intensity that had in many ways defined her, but slowly decomposing, maggots feasting on those green eyes the colour of Avada Kedavara. 

Sometimes he would wonder about Harry. Sometimes he would fantasise about the boy arriving at Hogwarts, green eyes like Lily, and being sorted into Slytherin. How Severus would then care for him, maybe not like a father because Severus knew nothing of fathers, but as an uncle. That Harry would like him, respect him and excel at all his classes. That Severus would tell him stories of his mother, small tidbits kept secret from the rest of the world. That maybe sometimes Harry would visit his mother’s grave with him, though he knew that the boy would likely want to visit his father’s grave as well. Severus ignored that, feeling no desire to grieve for a man who had caused him so much pain but at the same time feeling no desire to desecrate the grave that lay beside the one he haunted. 

Maybe, he had thought on the occasional cold night, when the candles seemed so faint, the flames flickering feebly, maybe Harry would grow up to be a great man who could defeat Voldemort. Severus would be there, in the background, always helping. Maybe once that was done, maybe once Harry knew what his mother had wanted so much, there might be a way of fixing it. Of them ensuring what remained of her was properly burnt, given to the flames and consumed entirely. He knew it was just a fantasy, something that likely would never come to fruition, but sometime he let himself dream. Mostly, he just hoped to protect Harry, that the two of them could form a relationship of some kind, though Severus knew he could never usurp the affections of either the boy’s real parents or the ones who would now be raising him. Secrets and details that were kept from him, by an employer who liked his usefulness but not him.

So in secret, in the summer and whenever he could manage to sneak away, he would continue to visit Lily’s grave. Talking to her, telling her the news of the world, hoping that one day he would be able to tell her the news of her son as well. Just a small gesture to alleviate her loneliness and his guilt, grieving through his thoughts of fire.


End file.
